Wolf Follower – Dynamic pet including Hunger and Growth system
This mod adds to the game a new wolf companion to accompany you on your travels. He starts off as a puppy and grows up over time (default: 10 game-weeks). Every day he gets hungry so you need to feed him some raw meat. There are a few special commands that unlock as he grows. Finally, you have the option of giving him a fully custom name
Description
This mod adds to the game a new wolf companion to accompany you on your travels. He starts off as a puppy and grows up over time (default: 10 game-weeks). Every day he gets hungry so you need to feed him some raw meat. There are a few special commands that unlock as he grows. Finally, you have the option of giving him a fully custom name
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Requirements
Latest version of SKSE
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Details
Location – He can be found at a clearing in the woods, at the foot of the mountains near Riverwood’s South Gate, sniffing around the corpse of his recently deceased mother (poor chap). You will need to give him some meat to entice him to follow you.
Growth – By default, every seven days the wolf will grow a stage. What this actually means is his health and damage go up 0.1 (he starts at 0.6 of the vanilla adult wolf for both stats) and his model grows in scale by 0.1 (he starts at scale 0.3 of the vanilla wolf), also on the third and sixth stage there is a mesh swap (he starts with a “Puppy” mesh, then there’s a “Teen” mesh and finally the vanilla adult mesh). If you leave him at home, the growth mechanic will continue regardless
Hunger – Roughly every day, the wolf will get hungry. You will need to give him some meat (through dialogue) in order to feed him. You will be notified that he is hungry by text in the top left corner. The time between notifications by default is 2 minutes and the time it takes for your wolf to next get hungry is calculated by taking the static, configurable number (default 15) then adding a random number between 1 and 10. Each day you let him go hungry, he will suffer progressively worse detrimental effects, on the seventh day he dies. If you leave him at home using the dismiss dialogue option then this system will turn off until you “hire” him again, but if you leave him somewhere using the “wait” dialogue and don’t return then he’ll die (i havn’t tested this yet).
Naming – Thanks to the genius of TaichiKid, you are able to name your wolf anything you like. When you first hire him, a menu will pop up asking if you wish to name him. When you click yes, the console will open. During this time your key-presses are tracked. Only individual presses are recognised so you cannot hold down a button to get multiple letters (even if the console shows otherwise). When you are finished either press enter or the console button to continue.(currently not working, disabled)
Commands – As your wolf grows, you will receive some special commands (lesser powers):
Set New Home: Designates the spot you are standing as your wolf’s home. When you dismiss him through dialogue, this will be the place he returns to.
Wander/Heel: Toggles whether your wolf will wander about while following you or stay close and still. Once he reaches the Teen stage a third option, Wander Far, will become available (whole feature currently disabled, as I have been unsuccessful in making him sandbox)
Return to me: Teleports your wolf to you. To try and keep it immersive, he spawns behind you then walks up to you
Attack: Your wolf attacks whatever is in your crosshair (Unlocks when your wolf is a “Teen”)
Retrieve Kill: Aim the power at a creature to mark it. When the creature is killed, your wolf will run over, pick the corpse up then run back and drop it at your feet. Power can either be used ahead of time by marking a live creature, or after the fact by aiming at the corpse of a recent kill (Unlocks when your wolf is a “Teen”)
Go Hunt: Only works if you are outside in the wilderness. Makes your wolf run off into the distance, disappear for 2 minutes, then return to you with a full stomach. When he reaches the Adult stage, he’ll return with some of the kill for you (Unlocks when your wolf is a “Teen”)
Cancel: Stops the previous three commands, making your wolf return to following you (Unlocks when your wolf is a “Teen”)
MCM Menu – You can configure most of the variables in the features above through SkyUI’s MCM menu. This mod will still work if you do not have SkyUI installed, you will just be stuck with the defaults
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Installing
Main File
Just move the esp and bsa into your data folder, or use NMM
Custom Texture Addon
1. Install the archive as normal with NMM
2. Download a good wolf retexture pack
3. Open it up and find Wolf.dds, Wolf_n.dds and wolfPelt.dds, copy them to a temporary location (eg, desktop)
4. Open up your skyrim folder, navigate to …skyrim/data/textures/WolfFollower, then paste the textures here
5. Rename them followerWolf.dds, followerWolf_n.dds and followerWolfPelt.dds
6. Load skyrim and enjoy
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Uninstalling
Not supported. If you want to get rid of the wolf just starve him until he dies (you cruel, cruel person you!), at which point all the background scripting will shut down. If there ever was a safe time to remove the mod, this might be it. But on your head be it. Personally, I won’t remove any mod once I’ve played with it for a while, the save game still hasn’t been decoded so we still don’t know how far the “Data bake” rabbit hole goes
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Future Plans
The first thing on my todo list is to reintroduce the content marked as disabled above. This will only happen once I’ve worked out the bugs and the powers work 100% of the time.
The mod will eventually be expanded to having a Sabrecat version.
What I need now is an audio artist to make the voices for the Puppy and Teen versions. At the moment the voice is just the vanilla Adult from the beginning
I’m always on the look out for ideas for new features and commands, so please don’t hesitate to post
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Credits
B1gBadDaddy – For the initial idea, letting me just “go with it” and then all the technical discussion between there and now
TaichiKid – For the naming mechanic from his “Spell Crafting for Skyrim” mod. Thank you so much for providing the source files for the community
SKSE Team – Without this amazing resource, Skyrim modding wouldn’t be the same
Everybody in the BGS forums – Best place for CK technical help
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